1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information display devices and information selecting and displaying methods, and more particularly relates to an information display device for displaying information selected from information managed by an information processing terminal and extracted into a semiconductor memory and an information selecting and displaying method for selecting and displaying such information.
2. Description of the Related Art
As portable information processing terminals including personal digital assistants (PDAs) have become widely used and cellular phones have become more sophisticated, users can easily possess a large amount of information. Since information apparatuses such as portable information processing terminals and cellular phones have a function of connecting to the so-called Internet, an information communication environment has been constructed in which information that used to be available only by personal computers (PC) (many of which are stationary) that can connect to the Internet is now available in a simple manner at any time.
In addition to the above PDAs and cellular phones, compact, large-capacity semiconductor memories have become widely used. Such semiconductor memories can be inserted into, in addition to the above information apparatuses, an increasing number of various electronic apparatuses such as PCs, video cassette recorders, and digital still cameras for recording and playing information. The semiconductor memories can record data simultaneously in plural formats, such as still image data, moving image data, and audio data (music data). With such a recording medium, a user need not use recording media associated with individual electronic apparatuses handling data in different formats. The user may use a single recording medium in these electronic apparatuses. Recently, semiconductor memories have become capable of storing a larger amount of data. Semiconductor memories of 4 MB to 1 GB have been commercially available. Large-capacity semiconductor memories exceeding 1 GB have been developed.
The functionality of the information apparatuses is enhanced in combination with the semiconductor memories. A large amount of data may be exchanged between the information apparatuses via a semiconductor memory even when the information apparatuses have no dedicated interfaces.
Of numerous functions of the information apparatuses, the functions actually needed by users include quickly checking the schedule or up-to-date information and, where necessary, quickly searching for the email address and/or phone number of a person who has sent an email message or has called.
Although the functions and performance of the PDAs and the cellular phones have become more sophisticated, there are cases where a user cannot reach desired information unless the user follows the same procedure as when using a PC, such as booting the machine, starting up the software, and so forth. In terms of efficiency in viewing necessary information, the PDAs and the cellular phones are inconvenient when the user need information as quickly as possible. In terms of user-friendliness of these information processing terminals, the user wanting to view information may not be able to operate the information processing terminal on a crowded train or when only one hand of the user is free.